Like any serious literary work, Taylor Swift leads the new songs on her albums with an introduction — or, in her words, a prologue. With the release of “1989 (Taylor’s Version)” Oct. 27, fans were blessed with many new paragraphs to contemplate.
“1989” was released, originally, in 2014, an “era” in Swift’s career that saw her move to New York, allegedly date Harry Styles, don sunglasses — and make a full turn toward pop after starting first in country.
This was also a time she made more headlines for her girl squad hangouts than her boyfriends. According to the prologue, that, too, was on purpose — and was misconstrued.
A paragraph in the prologue is gaining pickup because it seems to respond to the “Gaylor” contingent of Swift’s fan base that theorizes she’s queer. (While Swift is an advocate of the LGBTQ+ community, she has never come out as queer. She said of her advocacy work for the LGBTQ+ community in a 2019 interview with Vogue, “I didn’t realize until recently that I could advocate for a community that I’m not a part of.”)
“Being a consummate optimist, I assumed I could fix this if I simply changed my behavior. I swore off dating and decided to focus only on myself, my music, my growth, and my female friendships. If I only hung out with my female friends, people couldn’t sensationalize or sexualize that — right? I would learn later on that people could and people would,” she writes in her prologue.
She provides a different motivation for all those friends in the prologue. “Maybe a girl who surrounds herself with female friends in adulthood is making up for a lack of them in childhood (not starting a tyrannical hot girl cult),” she writes, tongue-in-cheek, later on.
Read on for the full prologue.
Read the prologue to ‘1989 (Taylor’s Version)’ in full
The introduction to “1989 (Taylor’s Version)” has two parts: a handwritten message and another two-page note typed in all-caps Courier with the handwritten word “prologue” in the top left corner.
The longer prologue contains the language of the handwritten introduction at the end.
Handwritten prologue
I was born in 1989, reinvented for The first time in 2014, and a part of me was reclaimed in 2023 wiTh The re-release of This album I love so dearly. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine The magic you would sprinkle on my life for so long.
This moment is a reflection of The woods we’ve wandered Through and all This love between us still glowing in The darkest dark.
I present to you, wiTh gratitude and wild wonder, my version of 1989.
It’s been waiting for you.
(Fans also couldn’t help but notice how the singer capitalized the Ts in her message.
“So yeah…11 capital Ts,” one fan wrote on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.)
Typed prologue
When I was 24 I sat in a backstage dressing room in London, buzzing with anticipation. My backup singers and bandmates gathered around me in a scattered circle. Scissors emerged and I watched in the mirror as my locks of long curly hair fell in piles on the floor. There I was in my plaid button down shirt, grinning sheepishly as my tour mates and friends cheered on my haircut. This simple thing that everyone does. But I had a secret. For me, it was more than a change of hairstyle. When I was 24, I decided to completely reinvent myself.
How does a person reinvent herself, you ask? In any way I could think of. Musically, geographically, aesthetically, behaviorally, motivationally … and I did so joyfully. The curiosity I had felt the first murmurs of while making “Red” had amplified into a pulsing heartbeat of restlessness in my ears. The risks I took when I toyed with pop sounds and sensibilities on “Red”? I wanted to push it further. The sense of freedom I felt when traveling to big bustling cities? I wanted to live in one. The voices that had begun to shame me in new ways for dating like a normal young woman? I wanted to silence them.
You see — in the years preceding this, I had become the target of slut shaming — the intensity and relentlessness of which would be criticized and called out if it happened today. The jokes about my amount of boyfriends. The trivialization of my songwriting as if it were a predatory act of a boy crazy psychopath. The media co-signing of this narrative. I had to make it stop because it was starting to really hurt.
It became clear to me that for me there was no such thing as casual dating, or even having a male friend who you platonically hang out with. If I was seen with him, it was assumed I was sleeping with him. And so I swore off hanging out with guys, dating, flirting or anything that could be weaponized against me by a culture that claimed to believe in liberating women but consistently treated me with the harsh moral codes of the Victorian Era.
Being a consummate optimist, I assumed I could fix this if I simply changed my behavior. I swore off dating and decided to focus only on myself, my music, my growth, and my female friendships. If I only hung out with my female friends, people couldn’t sensationalize or sexualize that — right? I would learn later on that people could and people would.
But none of that mattered then because I had a plan and I had a demeanor as trusting as a basket of golden retriever puppies. I had the keys to my own apartment in New York and I had new melodies bursting from my imagination. I had Max Martin and Shellback who were happy to help me explore this new sonic landscape I was enamored with. I had a new friend named Jack Antonoff who had made some cool tracks in his apartment. I had the idea that the album would be called “1989,” and we would reference big 80’s synths and write sky high choruses. I had sublime, inexplicable faith and I ran right toward it. In high heels and a crop top.
There was so much that I didn’t know then, and looking back I see what a good thing that was. This time of my life was marked by right kind of naïveté, a hunger for adventure, and a sense of freedom I hadn’t tasted before. It turns out that the cocktail of naïveté, hunger for adventure and freedom can lead to some nasty hangovers, metaphorically speaking. Of course everyone had something to say. But they always will. I learned lessons, paid prices, and tried to … don’t say it … don’t say it … I’m sorry, I have to say it … shake it off.
I’ll always be so incredibly grateful for how you loved and embraced this album. You, who followed my zig zag creative choices and cheered on my risks and experiments. You, who heard the wink and humor in “Blank Space” and maybe even empathized with the pain behind the satire. You, who saw the seeds of allyship and advocating for equality in “Welcome to New York.” You, who knew that maybe a girl who surrounds herself with female friends in adulthood is making up for a lack of them in childhood (not starting a tyrannical hot girl cult). You, who saw that I reinvent myself for a million reasons, and that one of them is to try my very best to entertain you. You, who have had the grace to allow me the freedom to change.
I was born in 1989, reinvented for the first time in 2014, and a part of me was reclaimed in 2023 with the re-release of this album I love so dearly. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine the magic you would sprinkle on my life for so long.
This moment is a reflection of the woods we’ve wandered through and all this love between us still glowing in the darkest dark.
I present to you, with gratitude and wild wonder, my version of “1989.”
It’s been waiting for you.
(The note concludes with a handwritten “Taylor.”)
How does the ‘1989 (Taylor’s Version)’ prologue compare to the original ‘1989’ foreword?
The initial “1989” release had a foreword, too. Written from 24-year-old Swift’s perspective, it was noticeably different from the one written by 33-year-old Swift, looking back on a time in her life nearly a decade ago.
TikToker Kristina Parro (@lyric.ology) posted a video analyzing the differences and “poetic” parallels.
“Both the foreword and the prologue talk a lot about change, but I would say that the prologue talks more about why Taylor was forced to change,” Parro observes.
For example, whereas the foreword for “1989” (2014) starts with Swift listing out when and where she was born — Dec. 13, 1989, in Reading, Pennsylvania, if you’re curious — the prologue for “1989 (Taylor’s Version)” starts with where Swift was born again, getting a short bob haircut amid an era of reinvention.
The original foreword seems to lead into the new prologue, by ending at the place the new one begins: a haircut.
This article was originally published on TODAY.com
Laura Davis is an entertainment aficionado who delves into the glitz and glamour of the entertainment industry. From Hollywood to Broadway, she offers readers an insider’s perspective on the world of movies, music, and pop culture.
